It has become cliche to refer to energy storage as the holy grail of renewable energy. Actually, it’s not energy storage that we need. We have that. What we need is cheap energy storage.
“Most storage technology is expensive so we spend a lot of time trying to figure out the value.”
Those are the words of EPRI’s Dan Rastler who spoke on Wednesday night at the monthly Silicon Valley Photovoltaic Society meeting at PARC.
EPRI
Mr. Rastler is the Program Manager for Energy Storage at EPRI.
Founded in 1973, EPRI is an “independent” non-profit center for public interest energy and environmental research center that receives about $350 million in funding each year. “Independent” is an approximate term in this case as EPRI’s substantial budget comes in the most part from America’s utilities. And utility agendas don’t always map exactly with the public good. That said, it was an informative talk and Mr. Rastler did not seem too evil.
Smart Grid Defined
Rastler’s talk looked at electric energy storage’s role in the smart grid, defining the smart grid as “overlaying information control technology over the electric grid for efficiency and reliability,” adding, “The buzzword is interoperability – how do you make everything connect across the entire domain from bulk generation to the customer?”
He made the distinction between smart grid on the utility side – where utilities are putting sensors and cameras on utility assets, “to where it really gets interesting”– the customer side where the smart grid can influence customer behavior.
Another important point he made was the need for scale – because anything less than 100 megawatts is not really important to a utility.
via Greentech Media.
